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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24972349">'A' for effort</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenhawk/pseuds/Serenhawk'>Serenhawk</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Annals of Misha and Dean [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Supernatural, Supernatural RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Background Poly, Bisexual Dean Winchester, M/M, Meet-Cute, OTCP-one true crack pairing, Oral Sex, Professor Misha, Student Dean Winchester, UST</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 00:42:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,121</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24972349</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serenhawk/pseuds/Serenhawk</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dean Winchester decided to put his job on hold and take a chance on college life as an adult freshman, he was resigned to being out of his comfort zone while surrounded by those out of his age range. What he didn't expect was that his attention would be held by one of his teachers - no less problematic, but the kicker? It wasn't the first time Dean had enjoyed an eye full of his second favorite professor.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Misha Collins/Dean Winchester, Misha Collins/Vicki Vantoch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Annals of Misha and Dean [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807510</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>'A' for effort</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>If you know me, I've probably waxed lyrical to you about my favorite crack ship: Misha/Dean.<br/>The ways in which Misha relates to Castiel, and Jensen to Dean have been talked about by both the actors and fandom at length. But have you ever thought about how Misha relates to Dean when he and Jensen each take to their marks in front of the cameras? Or, Jensen to Cas? We all know Destiel is Cockles's fault, their stories running in a symbiotic parallel. But we don't pay as much attention to how those relationships crisscross, despite them being embedded in both the performances and their love. Afterall, Cas is Misha, and Dean is Jensen.</p><p>Recently, I was playing around on twitter and composed <a href="https://twitter.com/Serenhawk_fic/status/1265817505483784193?s=20"><em>this</em></a> thread of 'what ifs' in images. This was a mistake, because I immediately wanted to begin turning them into fic....and now here we are.<br/>Any that I finish will become part of this series. I'm kicking it off with a teaser: a fun, nonsense AU, suggested in a response to one of these prompts. Bear with me and I'll serve you up some feels you didn't know you needed as I go.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"College AU where Misha is a college professor and Dean is his bratty student" - thanks @inbarlovescas. Don't mind if <em>I</em> do. </p><p>           </p><p>Prompt tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/Serenhawk_fic/status/1265817570705207296?s=20"><em>here</em></a></p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The thing about random hookups—at least the ones sought and successfully undertaken by Dean Winchester—is that they are meant to be <em>random. </em> That was explicitly part of the deal between himself and the universe. And, of course, the various angels and villains that populated his sexcapades. </p><p>They were not, after you had their dick down your throat in a dingy stall while your friends bought the last round of your <em>good luck starting your life all over again at college, loser </em>drinks, meant to show up at the front of your PSYC 105 class on your second day and introduce themselves as ‘Professor Collins’.</p><p>But, as Dean had long suspected, the universe liked to single him out for entertaining punchlines and this is exactly what had happened, four weeks ago to the day. Now, one lunar cycle later, Dean was starting to get a handle on this college thing. The imposter syndrome had let up on keeping him awake all night, and he was almost enjoying his new schedule and the flow of ideas into his previously static existence. He was also beginning to enjoy the subtle torture of his behavioral psychology professor who, after an honest to god spit take twenty-seven minutes into that first lecture when his scanning eyes had settled on Dean nestled in the second to back row, had apparently adopted the ‘ignore it and it will go away’ approach to the fact that one of his freshman students had seduced him away from his friends on a dance floor by inviting him politely to fuck his face in the bathroom.</p><p>It wasn’t that Dean hadn’t been crippled with chagrin at first, and immediately wondered if he needed to rearrange his whole semester schedule to transfer out of this class. Or the entire school, for that matter. But 105 was a course requirement, and if he was honest he was more petrified of fucking up his timetable than he was of dealing with the consequences of scoring a drunken handjob from his accidentally soon-to-be professor. So he’d decided to play it by ear. </p><p>After that initial and decidedly comical recognition, his teacher’s eyes had steadfastly glided right over wherever Dean sat throughout the following weeks. It both irritated and amused him, but mostly it afforded him the opportunity to study the man at length. In class, Collins had a completely different persona to the guy that had floundered into him with jerky, flailing limbs approximating dance moves<em>, </em>to which Dean had responded, obnoxiously, by molding to the dude’s back as he’d tried to apologize over one shoulder. Dean had shamelessly ground against his ass with the cover of the thronging crowd, pushing him closer towards one of the women in his group. She hadn’t seemed to mind a bit, joining in to complete the sandwich for the remainder of the song. But then, after some silent communication Dean caught but didn't understand, she’d turned her friend to Dean’s front to reverse the configuration, undeniably surrendering him to Dean’s mercy.</p><p>It had been approximately eight seconds later when Dean forgot to be an asshole, hypnotized by the guy’s wide eyes flashing from indigo to Aegean blue every time the lights phased to white. He'd forgotten about his friends too, the beat vibrating around the mass of bodies on the dancefloor slowing in his senses, like a slow-mo movie sequence. Or maybe that was just the gin, since Dean couldn’t recall even now exactly when he’d propositioned blue-eyed guy. He did remember they'd been abandoned by their respective parties, and the feel of the dude's wide palm on his hip as they moved, their thighs all but interlocking and their gazes fixed. He remembers <em>that </em>because he also remembers thinking distinctly that it was a good hand, strong but lithe, and it had occurred to him already there were a few ways he could put it to use.</p><p>When Dean had pulled him by that hand into the wheelchair bathroom two tracks later, having at least the presence of mind to lock the door and re-request permission to access the guy’s pants, he had been the one in the driver’s seat. His companion, by contrast, was artless—timid even—and Dean had taken full advantage by pushing him against the wall between the paper dispenser and air dryer before dropping to his knees, tearing his eyes away from the adorable surprised O on the puckered mouth to nuzzle against the fly of the jeans two inches away from his nose before diving enthusiastically in.</p><p>Now, in the austerity of the lecture theatre with fifty seated freshmen, Collins was firmly in command and clearly used to it. The man enjoyed playful banter with his students, or when the pendulum swung on a discussion, but Dean had been in enough arguments with this precocious brother (who even during his pre-law degree could manipulate a discussion to exactly where he wanted it) to know that the professor was a sly conductor of the room. There was little trace in the solid figure taking the lecture cloaked in an almost theatrical three-piece of his gangly, unseasoned playmate from the club. Dean hadn’t had the opportunity to assume much at the time beyond how the guy must run religiously to store all that hidden muscle mass in his glutes, but Collins had turned out a little older than Dean had guessed—hovering just above thirty maybe—and if it wasn’t for the way his professor had initially reacted, Dean may have dismissed him as a mere lookalike.</p><p>“...and I’ll look forward with indescribable excitement for your first essays on Monday morning,” Collins declared from down at the podium, drawing Dean out of his reverie. “If you have any questions, or are in a state of total panic, I’ve made some extra office hours available this afternoon between 3 and 5. Feel free to stop by and introduce yourselves.”</p><p>The students around Dean immediately began gathering their things into backpacks and satchels. As did their teacher, his trademark bow tie ending the lecture skewed, a little like Dean himself. Watching Collins beat a hasty departure in the middle of the horde of kids without so much as a backward glance, Dean couldn’t help wondering if he should take up the invitation. He continued to wonder right through his lunch break, and an hour hunting for enough resources from the library to hopefully churn out both of the papers he’d be writing this weekend, and on through his 2-hour ethics lecture. It seemed too much like tempting fate, squaring off against someone with the power to sink his academic transcript before it even launched, but a part of him was just too curious as to what the professor’s reaction would be. Furthermore, if he was going to have to bail on this course and make it up next semester, he’d rather know now.</p><p>So it was that Dean found himself nervously scouting the halls of the sociology wing and hovering in an adjacent hallway until the last student left his office at 4:54 pm.</p><p> </p><p>Stalking up to the door, still ajar, he tapped against the wood. “Come on in,” said the occupant, too absorbed in writing in what looked like an old-fashioned planner to notice whom he was inviting.</p><p>Dean stepped inside and gently latched the door to shut himself in, then waited, scanning the book-lined shelves and stacks of paper files on cabinets filling the perimeter of the small, windowless room. When his stare landed again on the man behind the desk, the one looking back at him was wide with alarm. </p><p>A sheepish grin leaked onto Dean’s face, the teacher’s eyes responding by dipping in resignation in tandem with his shoulders.</p><p>“Uh, hi?” Dean chirped.</p><p>Collins sighed, capped his pen, and risked an upwards glance. “I should have known this was coming, though I was hoping for both our sakes that it wouldn’t,” he admitted stoically.</p><p>Dean deflated. “Sorry, I guess?” he answered, a sour note in his voice. The professor's expression turned pained. “That answers the question of whether you remember me,” Dean added, mumbling.</p><p>“Remem—what?” the man began, shock wrinkling his mouth. “Of course I—sorry—” He paused to pull in a deep breath. “Believe me, I’m unlikely to forget you anytime soon,” he finished, pulling irritably at his collar. Then he allowed a warm, crooked smile to settle on Dean.</p><p>Relief cautiously spread through him, followed by a flash of the familiar Dean Winchester brand of cocky that won him this guy’s pants around his ankles in the first place. “Is that so?” he risked.</p><p>Collin’s elicited a whine from behind a sudden swipe of his left palm, nose to chin. “<em> Shit I’m so fucked.” </em></p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Nothing. Sorry, you’ve just caught me off guard. I'm rarely good with surprises. Um...how can I help?” he asked, switching back into professional mode and gesturing for Dean to take the seat across the desk. “Do you need some course assistance?”</p><p>Dean hesitated for a moment before shucking his backpack and depositing his ass into the vinyl chair. “Yeah, sure,” he started, wracking his brain for a question despite his homework being the last thing on his mind. He came clean when he couldn’t locate one. “Actually, no,” he admitted, pursing his lips. “I wanted to check that we—uh—that everything was cool with our...situation.”</p><p>A frown furrowed his professor’s brow under a large errant curl of hair. “We have a situation?”</p><p>“We <em> don’t </em> have a situation?”</p><p>“We—no." the furrow deepened. "No, I don’t think so.”</p><p>Dean answered with a frown of his own, though it was more out of confusion than concern. “O...kay?”</p><p>Collins pushed back his seat and slouched, steepling his long, elegant fingers in his lap. Only his long sigh dragged Dean’s eyes back up to his face. “Look, I’ll be honest, I was mortified when I first saw you in class. I fretted over it for a week in fact, to the point my wife noticed and—”</p><p>Something in Dean chilled. “Your <em>wife? </em>” he interrupted.</p><p>“Yes, sorry. I’m married. You, uh...I supposed <em> met </em> it too precise a term, but she was with me, that—that night. We were dancing together.”</p><p>“Your wife let you—she...she <em> gave </em> you to me?” Dean’s brain cells were suddenly beginning to tire. “You kinky shit,” he managed to add, admiringly.</p><p>“It’s not...<em> kinky</em>,” Collins rebuked with an agile eye roll. “We have a...thing.” He waved a palm in the air, signaling ‘thing’ likely stood for something too complicated for Dean to assimilate right now, and he was right. “She affords me with the kind of generosity I seldom deserve. But then, she’s not like anyone I’ve ever known, which is why I married her,” he continued, rambling now. “You might have seen her here; she’s in the psych department, takes the 102 course.”</p><p>Dean managed to squash the strangled noise rising in his throat. “Prof Vantoch?” he squeaked. </p><p>“Yes,” the man confirmed, then pushed the heels of his palms into his eyes with a moan. “Oh no. You’re in her class too.”</p><p>“She’s my favorite” Dean murmured numbly, thinking of the snarky, quick-witted woman with acres of unruly dark hair who made the end of every lecture so far arrive too quickly. It was the glasses, he realized. She hadn’t been wearing glasses in the club, and it’s not like his attention spent much time on her anyway.</p><p>“Sorry?”</p><p>“She’s uh...I really like her?” he ventured, supremely out of his depth. How had this turned into a complete shitshow?</p><p>The teacher arched his right brow. “I’m not your favorite?” he accused.</p><p>Dean didn’t know whether to laugh and slink out the door before this conversation got any weirder. In the end, he shrugged noncommittally. “I mean, I like you too,” he declared, adding a wink for good measure.</p><p>Collin’s expression swayed back from indignant to dismayed. Then he cleared his throat, adam’s apple bobbing. “Anyway,” he resumed purposefully, “she noticed, and I explained my—our <em>conundrum</em>, then she helpfully pointed out that I didn’t have come up with a reason to request your transfer to another class because I...I don’t know your name,” he finished uncomfortably.</p><p>Dean frowned again, pulling the pieces of that night and its repercussions together. “I’m D—” he began without thinking.</p><p>The professor held up one hand and barked a noise that succeeded in Dean’s name dying on his tongue. Then he loosened and resumed. “You see, how can there be a conflict? The TA’s do most of the marking, and your final grade can hardly be influenced by any personal, um...<em> relations </em> if I don’t have a name to put to your face.”</p><p>Blinking, Dean sifted through the reasoning. “Is that—is that kosher?”</p><p>It was the other man’s turn to shrug. “I’m not planning on putting it to the test. That is—” Collins looked down to where nervous fingertips traced a pattern on the desktop,” —that is if you’re of the same mind.”</p><p>“I wasn’t planning on either transferring out or making a fuss, if that’s what you’re asking,” Dean assured bluntly. “I’m a 26-year-old mechanic solving a quarter-life crisis by going back to school. I just wanna keep my head down and make it through at least one semester so I don’t have to skulk back to my old life with my tail between my legs.”</p><p>Collin’s face softened with a half-smile. “What?” Dean felt bound to accuse, albeit playfully.</p><p>“I admire your change of tack. I wish I’d taken more notice of certain signposts in life. <em> And </em> I’m trying not to divert this conversation and take further advantage by putting a professional question to you.”</p><p>Dean smirked, his charm flipping on like a switch. “You want me to take a look under your hood...<em> Sir? </em>”</p><p>Those blue eyes flared, and Dean held their scalding stare. <em> Interesting</em>. There was something about this guy...something that made him dangerously forget both how they met, and why they sat either side of a wide desk littered with stacks of paper in an unflatteringly lit office.</p><p>This time it was Collins who blinked first, shifting in his chair and reaching over his laptop to sort the top pages on a pile. “I suspect this the point where we should probably part, and never speak of this again,” he proposed, dismissive but sardonic.</p><p>“I can’t be the first of your students to flirt with you,” Dean replied jovially, rising to his feet nonetheless. The professor continued to fuss, perhaps to hide the flush creeping up his neck.</p><p>“No. I guess not,” he finally admitted, standing to meet Dean’s height. “But I’ve never commandeered a wheelchair access bathroom to take up the offer of oral sex from them either.”</p><p>Dean huffed a laugh as he slung his pack to his back. “Is it the bathroom or the blow job that’s bothering you more?”</p><p>His teacher beat him to the door, pausing a hand ready to activate the handle. “Some acts are unforgivable,” Collins deadpanned, and Dean couldn’t help but grin even as he stepped to lean a shoulder on the door, testing not just the physical boundaries between them.</p><p>“So you’d prefer risking an audience of drunk dickheads in the main convenience? Noted,” he teased softly. It was the closest they’d been since right after they’d both come in that confined and disinfected room when Dean had wanted to kiss the surprised, languid smile on this guy's face. It had only been the spunk still polluting his mouth that stopped him; not everyone was into tasting themselves, especially from a stranger.</p><p>Dean wanted to kiss him now.</p><p>Collins swallowed, and Dean followed the satisfying bob of his throat below the strong jaw for a second time. “These aren’t the notes I should encourage you taking,” his teacher said, matching Dean’s silken tone despite his wild gaze.<em> Jesus</em>, there was honest-to-god electricity zapping up Dean’s spine. <em> What the fuck. </em></p><p>“Would you...maybe...wanna—” Dean began, venturing a hapless finger to ghost over the twill lapel facing him. He didn’t couldn’t be sure what he was asking; he just knew he had to pose the question before he left this room.</p><p>His hand was caught lightly and removed but not let go, and the touch burned. “Let’s revisit in three months,” Collins murmured, self-conscious and authoritative all at once.</p><p>“Yeah?” Dean replied smugly.</p><p>“And you promise you’ll never <em>ever</em> enroll in my class again.” Dean shrugged an admission. “Nor my wife’s,” the professor added, managing a stern whisper. The mention threw Dean for a loop a second time and he felt a mild stab of loss, though he wasn’t sure exactly what for: the other teacher, or the fact this guy was already spoken for, of a sort. </p><p>He licked his lips, and the other man inched forward like it was involuntary. It took all of Dean's willpower not to close the gap, to fumble at the buttons of that ridiculous waistcoat and shove his hand down the front of those slacks, to make the man gasp as prettily as he'd done the first time when Dean had deep-throated him all in one go. “That could be the dealbreaker,” Dean said, letting them both off the hook. The quip worked, a low rumbling laugh almost making it out of Collins’s chest and snapping the mood. Their hands dropped away, and cooled.</p><p>They each shuffled back, and Dean whistled a low, easing breath. The professor crossed his arms like a belated shield. “I hadn’t done that before,” he said conversationally, out of the blue.</p><p>Dean’s brows knitted. “Excuse me?”</p><p>“At that bar. With you. With a random...er...partner."</p><p>“Guess I’m not so random, huh,” Dean observed, feeling every drop of irony in his own voice.</p><p>“Mmm,” Collins returned in kind. Then he leaned to crack the door ajar, and their moment was over.</p><p>Dean made a show of looking at his watch. “Three months from now, yeah?” he said cheerfully, then made himself push through the open door, and out in public. </p><p>“That’s if you still want…”</p><p>Dean pivoted, taking in the somewhat disheveled academic standing forlorn in the doorway, despite the fact Dean had only messed him up in his imagination. He flashed the man his most reliable panty-dropping smile. “I at least have to come by to tell you my name,” he proclaimed.</p><p>Turning again, he headed determinedly down the hall, leaving the echo of a distantly hissed ‘<em>Fuck!’ </em> behind while keeping his smile to himself.</p><p>
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